earth-based practices: WILDERNESS guide
tending to the heart of the earth
Wilderness Practices and Rites of Passage for Adolescents, young adults, women, helping professionals and change makers.
If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together. -African Proverb
Are you called to the wilderness and want to meet others who feel a longing to connect in meaningful ways with our natural home? Wild + Sage Heart is delighted to offer earth-based wilderness guide service during daylong retreats and groups. As your guide, Meredith supports people who are curious about earth-based practices and Rites of Passage work. In a group setting, participants will spend time in nature listening to the wisdom of the Earth as well as find ways to build a reciprocal relationship with the Earth and embody its healing medicine.
Humans have often sought out time alone with the Earth in order to find the answers to their questions and to signify a time of change and transition. Integrating Rites of Passage can be truly beneficial during these times of transition, when we want “answers.” Through these practices, we can mark significant moments in our lives, such as the death of a loved one, the ending of a relationship, a transition from adolescent to adult, the start of a new career, or as we commit to a life partner. Through intentional time and practices in nature and with community, we often find the “answers” and the healing we need to meet these moments of transition and change, and ultimately, experience more ease, connection, and wholeness.
Marry the Wild
Go out into the woods and hold a marriage ceremony —
Marry the root-talking trees and the rustling-leafed silence and the sun sifting through overhead.
Marry the wings-on-wind ones, and the quiet-never-knew-they-were-there ones and the ones who wake only at night.
Say, I do, to the fragrant decay of the forest and the new life always underfoot.
Say, to you I promise to be true, to the grassy clearing that glows at dusk and the coyotes howling, shepherding in the stars.
Say, I take thee, to the wild one within, who you may only remember when you look up at the moon or lay down in a meadow or when your heart breaks or a horrible pain strips you of your tameness.
Say, in sickness or in health, to the wild in you, who pleads for your return, though often you don't hear.
Maybe because you never learned how to, maybe because you're afraid to, maybe because you know it would upend your orderly life.
I had heard it said once, in a culture past that our soul was our marriage to the wild,
so if you want to know your soul —
go out into the woods and hold a marriage ceremony.
-Leyla Aylin